Facebook Launches Sponsored Results: PPC Ads in Facebook Search

Watch out, Google AdWords! Today, Facebook has officially launched its own version of PPC search ads, called Sponsored Results. While Facebook hasn't yet made any public mention of the launch, the social network did send announcements to some marketers today officially mentioning the release of the new advertising feature, according to TechCrunch.

1. Expanded distribution of your message, with placement in one of the most used features on Facebook.

2. The ability to target what people are looking for, by appearing alongside related Apps, Pages, and Places.

3. Flexibility to customize your landing destination, such as a specific tab on your Page.

Brands are not able to drive offsite using this product, but you will have the ability to drive to specific Pages, Tabs, and Canvas Applications.

Okay, so let's talk about this in more detail ...

Advertisers taking advantage of Facebook's new search ads can target searchers who are looking for specific apps, Facebook pages, and places, and they have the ability to include a link in the search results that directs searchers to their own app, page, custom page tab, or page post. These PPC search results are clearly marked as 'Sponsored' at the top of the ad, as you can see from the example below:

Furthermore, users also have the option of hiding certain ads by clicking the 'X' in the right-hand corner of the ad. Doing so launches a pop-up with a question inquiring why the user is choosing to hide the ad (options include "uninteresting," "misleading," "offensive," "repetitive,” etc.).

Although advertisers don't yet have the ability to direct searchers off-site from Facebook to an external web page, their ads can appear higher than the organic results for a given search. This gives Sponsored Results ads the potential to steal traffic from competitors, as you can see by the sponsored Match.com result appearing before the organic OkCupid results for the search "OKCupid."

How to Purchase Sponsored Results

While Facebook started rolling out Sponsored Results to bigger app developers like Zynga and Match.com, TechCrunch reports that Facebook is now rolling out the functionality more broadly.

So ... Will Sponsored Results Be an Effective Form of Facebook Advertising?

As with any new Facebook ad offering, we'll have to wait and see. However, we're skeptical about it really challenging Google AdWords. As TechCrunch highlights, Facebook users rarely use Facebook search for anything other than an attempt to find a very specific Facebook presence. For example, users would use Facebook search if they were trying to find the official Facebook page for a particular restaurant they already know about. But if they were searching for different Mexican restaurant options in their geographic region, they probably wouldn't turn to Facebook search -- they'd go to Google!

Personally, I think Facebook will need to make a some changes to its search functionality in order for it to be a major selling point to Facebook advertisers. As a user, I rarely use Facebook search for anything. And to be honest, sometimes it's a lot easier for me to find a particular brand by searching "Brand X on Facebook" in Google rather than in Facebook search, where a lot of times I end up on unofficial brand pages before I can find the official page.

What do you think about Facebook's foray into PPC ads? Will you experiment with them to promote your Facebook presence?

Facebook definitely needs to fix its search functionality first. It's useless and doesn't work at all. Even if you know the exact name of the page you're searching for it hardly ever comes up in the results.

So, I personally wouldn't trust Facebook at all to deliver proper search ads to the right target group as long as the search function itself is still broken.

It seems like Facebook has a lot of issues to solve before making this new feature profitable. To be honest, I don't use FB search at all, and I think that would only use it to find some friends. As the author stated really well, if I want to find a brand on FB, I will Google it. Let's hope FB makes it more efficient, as adwords we all know brings results. Nice post!

Just imagine if Facebook had an affiliate program in the future just like Google AdSense. They wold make even more

$ gUaP $

over what they ready have now!

MayaNik

Definitely agree that Facebook search is used differently than Google search. Facebook search can be notorious for not showing you what you're actually looking for, and I think they have a long way to go before people will trust them as Google 2.0 inbedded into they're favourite social platform.

Martin Levi

As a user I go to FB to see what my friends and family are up to. I don't expect to be sold to, and am much less likely to click on a FB add than I am a Google ad.

As an advertiser I would still be bothered by FB's lack of transparency about who will see my ad and how relevant it would be to them.

But the real killer, both from the perspective of a user and an advertiser, is the inability to link off site - as long as the user is trapped in FB the whole thing is pointless.

I'm sure Facebook will never have the same reach as google does in terms of selling products, but to utilise Facebook for what it is good at - connecting people - then I can see potential in paid search results. Its a case of how you are measuring your success and what your overall goals are. I know a lot of clients who pay big money with no intention of selling anything.

Nice post Pamela. PPC Ads in the facebook search could be interesting but I agree that the inventory won't be there as facebook search volume is dwarfed by the 3 billion searches on Google each day. Question: Does anyone know how many searchers per day occur on facebook?

Like you, if looking for something on facebook, I will use Google search and scope the search to the facebook domain which works infinitely better than facebook search. From what I understand, facebook is investing in search, but, search that is to be competitive with Google is not a "bolt on" feature.

I do think that smart advertisers should test this new facebook PPC search ad unit, just don't expect that much distribution. It will be interesting to hear about click through rates and effective CPA on these new ad units.

I'm beginning to think that FB ads are something to be suspicious of. If you bid a low-ish amount for PPC, it barely produces exposure or results (no matter how big or small the target market) which just seems like an underhanded way to get you to pay something ridiculous for one click! A shame considering it should work better for everyone involved, them and us.